


tempest

by elizajane



Series: and behold, it was so very good [10]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Coffee Shops, Established Relationship, Hotels, M/M, Pre-Slash, Rain, Seaside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 04:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20483066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: It's just the sort of thing Aziraphalewoulddo: pick four perfectly ordinary, elderly humans and make their lives a bit better just by existing. Crowley can't stand it.





	tempest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [impatvish](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=impatvish).

> Chronology Note: This (and the companion piece "teapot") are the story of the previous visit to Weston-super-Mare that Crowley and Aziraphale talk about in "[seaside](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20195056)." It takes place during the period they are working at the Dowlings.
> 
> Gifting this one to impatvish because they asked for "Crowley and Aziraphale eating ice cream at a cafe" and the ice cream refused to appear IN THREE DIFFERENT DRAFTS but I did get in hot chocolate. And a cafe. 
> 
> Blessed be to my _Good Omens_ betas & co-conspirators Jaydeun and Crowgirl.

"Look, what's the _point_ of a week at the seaside if you don't go anywhere near the actual sea?" Crowley asks in irritation.

They're sitting in the lounge of a creaky Victorian hotel while a late September storm howls outside for the second morning in a row. They’d come to Weston-super-Mare so that Aziraphale could sort out something having to do with a convent of elderly nuns. Aziraphale insists the orders were from his superiors but Crowley doubts that any of the Host care as much as Aziraphale about the four white-haired women left at La Retraite. He suspects that Aziraphale read about the closing of their convent and decided to ease the pain of their departure by being physically present during their final week. It's just the sort of thing Aziraphale _would_ do: pick four perfectly ordinary, elderly humans and make their lives a bit better just by existing. Crowley can't stand it.

The fact that the task has been steadily sapping Aziraphale’s energy since they arrived hasn’t made Crowley any happier. Despite Crowley dragging him down to the hotel restaurant for regular meals and dragging him up to their room to make sure he sleeps, Crowley can taste the attenuation of Aziraphale’s grace on the air: rich earth slightly less arable, ink thinned to make it last longer. He can see Aziraphale’s pale skin growing pallid, see the smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes. He’s giving too much, as he always does, and it turns out there is a limit to how many English breakfasts Crowley can bully him into eating to keep up his strength. Which is why he’s started including tea because Aziraphale is weak in the face of good scones and clotted cream at more or less any time of day.

Crowley slides further down into his hideously upholstered wingback chair and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table where the serving girl had placed Aziraphale's fresh pot of tea. Aziraphale is sitting as upright as he always does -- it’s the slight droop of his shoulders that gives away his weariness -- and he’s working his way through the morning’s second pot of Yorkshire Gold with an open book across his knees. Aziraphale had packed an entire suitcase of books for the week, in addition to the valise he's used for over a century of travel, and so far he's made his way through a good two-thirds of the titles. Crowley had nicked an Agatha Christie from the pile this morning -- it's sitting unopened by his third cup of coffee -- but he can't focus on anything that isn’t Aziraphale failing to look after himself. It’s infuriating. _He’s_ infuriating.

Crowley glowers at the toes of his own boots. They are _excellent_ boots, in black leather, and work with skirts as well as trousers. A useful feature given how much time he spends in skirts these days. He’d taken Warlock tramping through the woods to the west of the Dowlings’ after the last hard rain and they had kept his feet warm and dry in mud up to his ankles. He’d brought them ‘specially on this trip since he’d allowed himself to imagine walking the sea cliffs with Aziraphale -- something they hadn’t done together in close to a decade. Perhaps stopping at a village pub at midday for a pint and a ploughman’s lunch. But the week hadn’t turned out that way at all because of the nuns. And the rain.

He can’t even distract himself with pleasingly petty annoyances. It's off-season, so the hotel is sparsely occupied and there’s only so much fun to be had inconveniencing the hotel staff. This morning -- their next-to-last -- the only other guests in the lounge are a group of five New Zealanders who’ve been doing such a fine job of being sinful all on their own that Crowley had grown bored with nudging them to misbehave by day two. The only other occupants of the hotel are an elderly couple from Bengaluru, in town for their granddaughter's wedding, and they haven’t put in an appearance since the day before. Crowley pulls his feet off the coffee table and lets them drop to the floor with a graceless thump.

Aziraphale glances up from his book at the sound and his gaze is painfully fond and knowing. Crowley looks away from Aziraphale’s understanding toward the windows. "You must admit, my dear,” Aziraphale says, following his gaze, ”that the view is something to be enjoyed whatever the weather." Crowley hears the exhaustion in his voice. Bloody nuns. Not even Satanic ones. What did they do to deserve Aziraphale's attention?

"I absolutely do not have to admit anything of the kind," he says, even though he knows it sounds petulant. He pushes himself out of the chair and prowls to the window to see what the view offers.

The view offers him rain. This side of the hotel had been built to overlook the bay which sweeps out below, shrouded in mist that's more rain than fog but could change its mind at any minute. Crowley inverts a couple of umbrellas to distract himself from the itchy feeling of Aziraphale's weariness. He _should_ be approvingly documenting Aziraphale’s pain: _The angel Aziraphale spent the week wasting his Heavenly powers on a group of nuns. After monitoring the situation closely, have determined his actions pose no threat to our objective of open war with the Host._ Instead, he's fretful that Aziraphale will overextend himself on inconsequential matters and be vulnerable to ... to ... well, this was technically where Crowley was supposed to sweep in and take advantage of Heaven's representative here on Earth. Undo Aziraphale’s careful work with a few well-placed demonic spanners in the works. But he hasn't managed to put his shoulder to that particular wheel for, oh, if he's honest with himself, half a millennia at least.

The rain lashes against the window with renewed vigor. Crowley's tetchy mood certainly isn’t encouraging the weather to improve. Crowley shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and softly knocks his forehead against the windowpane in frustration. A small web of cracks appear in the glass. He glares them closed and then does it again. And again. He looks back over his shoulder just in time to see Aziraphale settle his cup back in the saucer and turn another page.

It isn't helping that Crowley has no task to keep himself occupied. He should have brought his embroidery; not like he could have dragged the seven-year-old Antichrist along. Though the child did enjoy beaches -- particularly beaches with rocks. They were currently learning how to identify fossils, and for Warlock's birthday Crowley had presented the boy with his very own rock pick. But he’d needed a break from nannying and had allowed himself to imagine -- as he always did when Aziraphale went off on assignment, even though he knows better -- that it might be a holiday of the kind he and Aziraphale hadn’t had since Warlock was born. One with slightly less pressure to avert Armageddon and slightly more the two of them _enjoying_ things. Together. So Crowley had invented an elderly relative who had passed suddenly and left Warlock in the care of his parents for the week. The Dowlings have memories like lace as it is and Crowley has had dozens of relatives who expired precipitously because Aziraphale will keep taking it into his head to go on these mercy missions and Crowley can’t stop himself from hoping. Not to mention worrying that, without Crowley along, Aziraphale will forget to feed himself.

That and Crowley finds it difficult, these days, to sleep when Aziraphale is beyond county lines and he can’t taste him in the air.

That fact hasn't made it into any reports.

"I'll go for a walk," he mutters to no one in particular and turns toward the front hall.

No one stops him from walking out into the storm without either an umbrella or a raincoat. Depressingly, Crowley thinks, more likely due to the fact no one notices him leave rather than that he's being particularly intimidating. The rain whips against him as he picks his careful way down the muddy footpath along the cliff's edge toward the town centre. He passes no humans -- or any other beings for that matter -- on his way down; even the gulls have taken shelter.

He wraps just enough power around himself to keep his leather coat from ruin and skirts a rocky outcropping that, on a clear day, would be a lovely warm place for a nap. He hasn't enjoyed a proper snakey nap in several weeks what with one thing and another and he's starting to feel it. Maybe tonight he'll sleep in snake form. Sometimes, as a snake, it’s easier to let go of what he wishes were possible with Aziraphale and just … be with him. Without losing sleep over what comes next.

The driving rain continues and Crowley starts to feel the cold seeping into his core from his extremities but it only strengthens his petty resolve to remain outside just to make the point. _What_ point he's making, he realizes, is not entirely clear. Aziraphale will fuss when Crowley returns, and a part of Crowley wants that -- wants Aziraphale worrying about _him_ for a few precious minutes rather than the strangers he's been preoccupied with since they arrived. It's a selfish impulse, Crowley knows, and directly at odds with his other desire to stop Aziraphale from over-extending himself but selfishness is kind of built into demonic existence and they've been busy since Warlock was born, working side by side but rarely simply coexisting the way they had for so many centuries. They're preoccupied. It would have been nice to just … not. For a few days.

As he grows cold around the edges, he thinks about the way Aziraphale will look up from his armchair when Crowley returns to the hotel, imagines the worried frown that will crease Aziraphale's forehead. The way Aziraphale will set his book aside and stand up to cross the room to where Crowley stands dripping in the doorway. _Oh, my dear, you shouldn't have gone out without your muffler_, he will say, a hand on Crowley's shoulder. _You're shivering. Here, let's take you back to our room and get you out of these wet things_. He'll _tsk tsk_ as he does when Crowley doesn't take care of himself the way Aziraphale wishes he would. Crowley doesn't know how aware Aziraphale is that this is one of those things they do but never talk about: Crowley neglecting himself so that Aziraphale will touch him, hover around him, feed him, warm him, try to comfort him.

He can't ask. It's too precious a silence to shatter if the answer is _no_.

He's shivering by the time he looks up and sees the weathered little structure along the pavement between the street and the sands. Weathered gray shingles, tidy white trim, a bright flag reading OPEN that whips in the wind beside the front door. Perhaps hot chocolate, he thinks, would soothe his ill temper. He can pretend that Aziraphale has made it for him.

Crowley has become a connoisseur of hot chocolate since Aziraphale acquired a taste for it during London's chocolate house craze a few centuries back. These days it's hard to impress Crowley with a cup of cocoa unless you happen to be Aziraphale and know precisely how dark Crowley likes it, with an added bit of spice and a dash of whiskey. He could always stir a bit of demonic energy into the cup and turn whatever store-bought beverage he has into an approximation of the real thing, but it's always a disappointment so he usually doesn't.

Crowley opens the door and steps inside. He's the only customer and the human behind the counter is leaning over a folded newspaper, pencil in hand, doing the crossword. She looks up when he enters and and straightens with a sympathetic frown.

"Oh dear. What a dreadful day to be outside!"

Crowley shrugs, trying to find that line between _believably damp_ and _ too wet to be allowed past the welcome mat_. "Yeah, well." He moves toward the counter. There are glass-domed platters with pastries on the counter that look freshly-made. He can hear another person through an open doorway and glimpses a kitchen. He tastes the air and pictures the look of delight that would cross Aziraphale's face if he saw the sugared Bath buns spiced with cardamom that still lingers in the air from the baking. "Got anything that might take the edge off?"

She gestures to the neatly-lettered chalkboard signs behind the counter. "I can make any of these hot, and we can warm the pastries for you. Would you like a towel to dry your hair? We've only the kitchen rags, I'm afraid, but they're washed and sterilized on a regular basis."

Crowley accepts the offer, since disappearing into the washroom with a towel will let him glare his clothing a bit drier and stop his hair from dripping down the back of his neck.

"So what brings you to Weston?" The young woman asks when Crowley returns from the tiny washroom a shade or two drier and pushes the damp kitchen towel back across the counter. She's heating up the milk for his hot chocolate at the espresso machine and it smells promisingly rich, at least.

"Just a job," Crowley says. Explaining the _why_ of himself doesn’t even take conscious effort these days. "Have a friend who's a bit of a freelancer, needed some help on a rush project."

"Landscaping," Crowley gestures to the weather. "We've done all we can until this clears up."

The woman pushes his beverage across the counter with a murmur of sympathy. "I can imagine. My partner's an architect; they've been coping with delays all week. I’m Sam, by the way." She holds out a hand warm from her work.

“Anthony,” Crowley says, accepting the handshake. She’ll have seen it on his bank card in any case.

Without Aziraphale to sit across from him at one of the tables, Crowley elects to stay at the counter. He holds the cup between his icy hands to warm them and lets the steam rise into his face even if it does cloud his sunglasses a bit. The hot chocolate is objectively excellent even if a little sweet to his taste -- Aziraphale would delight in the marshmallow as it melted into the hot drink and Crowley enjoys picturing the way the white, sugary goo would inevitably cling to Aziraphale's lips, forcing him to lick them clean. The temptation to lick Aziraphale's lips clean _himself_ is often so powerful these days that Crowley has to blink away the illusion that he's actually done so. Occasionally Aziraphale catches him watching and Crowley doesn't think he fully imagine the small, private smile that Aziraphale gifts him for it.

"Is this your first time in Weston?" Sam asks as she cleans the espresso machine with practiced efficiency.

Crowley considers this. He can't remember having passed through the town since right before King George III had made it a fashionable location for the sea cure. "Been awhile," is what he finally offers. "Don't remember this cafe being here the last time."

"Then it _has_been a while," Sam says. "Mr. Foyle's parents opened this place back in the ‘70s."

"Mmm," Crowley says. "Perhaps I just didn't get down to this part of the waterfront. Had --" he waves a hand to indicate the town behind him. "-- other things to attend to then."

An older man with a towel slung over one shoulder comes out of the kitchen with a plate of muffins, so fresh Crowley can see the heat rising from them. He and Sam move around one another behind the counter with practiced ease and the man glances at Crowley with a visible twitch of an eyebrow.

"You're the one who needed the towel," he observes. "Poor day to be out without a slicker."

Crowley watches him settle the muffins into an empty spot on the counter and cover them with a glass dome. Crowley sips his cocoa and, without thinking too hard about how Aziraphale would approve, he gives the muffins a stern look so they don't steam up the glass.

"Headache?" the man asks.

Crowley shrugs, noncommittal. It's easiest to let humans make up their own mind about his dark glasses.

"My husband gets migraines occasionally," the man says, turning toward a shelf of tea tins and running his hand along until he finds what he's looking for. "He finds the peppermint black often helps." He passes Sam the tin. "Make him up a cup of that. On the house."

It's on Crowley's lips to say _thank you_ but the man's already gone back into the kitchen.

After making him up the tea, Sam returns to her crossword. Crowley finishes his cocoa and nurses the tea thinking Aziraphale would probably like it. The postman stops in with the day's mail. An elderly woman walking a small dog -- both woman and dog wearing bright yellow rain slickers -- stop in and exchange pleasantries with Sam. The dog gets a biscuit and the woman a cup of Tetley's to go with one of the plum muffins. Aziraphale would like the muffins, too, Crowley thinks. Perhaps he can lure Aziraphale here tomorrow with the promise of muffins and a pot of tea before they leave town.

He sighs. He should probably return to the hotel and make sure Aziraphale hasn't fallen asleep in his reading chair again. They have beds for that and Crowley is here to make damn sure Aziraphale actually _uses_ his.

"Thank you," he says to Sam, sliding to his feet and pushing the empty dishes back across the counter. "And thank him for the tea, as well." He's still cold, but it's a manageable chill. And there's whiskey back at the hotel. Maybe if he looks extra bedraggled Aziraphale will insist on running him a hot bath in the en suite’s enormous claw-foot tub.

As Crowley stands, bracing himself to go back out, the man comes back out of the kitchen with a dark green mackintosh over one arm. "You'll want this for the walk back."

Crowley raises an eyebrow high enough to be seen above the sunglasses. The man raises an eloquent eyebrow in return. Crowley grins, suddenly, at the thought that between the two of them they might be able to hold an entire conversation entirely composed of significant looks.

"Might be a bit big," is all the man says as he hands it over. "Husband's taller than you. Bring it back tomorrow."

"I'll do that," Crowley tips his head in thanks. "I'll bring my friend by. For the Bath buns." And, pulling the raincoat on, he turns to step out into the tempest once more.

**Author's Note:**

> The work title -- and its soon-to-be-published companion work title -- come from the idiom "tempest in a teapot" or "storm in a teacup" which [according to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_in_a_teapot) means "a small event exaggerated all out of proportion." My own interpretation of the saying would be that this duology is about a small event that demonstrates a great deal about how Crowley and Aziraphale care for one another.


End file.
